All roads lead to Rome

Today saw us heading back to Vatican City to visit the Basilica.  We decided to walk there as we were confident we had sussed out the way. It also helps to make sure the big dome attached to the Basilica is in front of us rather than behind!  Where we went wrong yesterday was we headed left when we should have turned right.  There was a big sign telling us which way to go which helped too.

After a 20 minute walk we were there.  It is a huge, beautiful space.  We went in and had a look at all the statues and art in there.  Pretty amazing.  Alison wanted to see the Pieta which is also in there.  I must say I preferred David.  After that it was into the bowels of the church to check out the tombs of all the dead Popes.  We didn't see all of the Popes but there are a few in there.  I didn't get to see Alexander VI, aka Rodrigo Borgia, who is my favourite Pope.  John Paul II is up inside St Peter's so we had seen him earlier.  We also saw St Peter's tomb down there.  We went back up the stairs to the way out and ended back in the church.

After that we decided to head up into the dome to get a look from above.  I only went as far as the first vantage point but Alison went all the way to the top.  Up there you get a great view of the entire city.  It was a beautiful day so it was just lovely to stand out on the roof of the Basilica and just have a look around.  We then headed down and ended up back in the Basilica!  It seemed that whichever exit you took you ended up back there!  Up on the roof you get a much closer look at the statues on the top, a lot of whom are shored up to stop them falling off.  I wondered how they decided the order of the apostles.  I might google it later.  Inside St Peter's there are heaps of statues of St Peter holding his keys and St Paul holding his sword.  According to David Moxon, the Popes used to be all about St Peter and St Paul but St Paul was dropped off pretty early.

Upon leaving the Basilica we were accosted by the selfie stick sellers yet again.  One got all up in Alison's face and she told him to go away.  We had to run the gauntlet of them!  We were overtaken by a Police car heading up as there is still a lot of security around.  Next minute about six selfie stick sellers came tearing past us with the Police in hot pursuit!  Hilarious and my favourite moment of the day.  Have just had a piece of pizza from a little cafe and now I am resting my weary feet before heading out for some gelato.

Photos will be added at some later stage.

At the stadium, at the stadium...

The view this morning

Today we went to the Vatican and then the Colosseum.  We thought we had the directions to the Vatican sussed but ended up going in completely the wrong direction!  On a positive note, we did find where we were going after we went to the Vatican, and it was completely in the opposite direction.  We decided to follow the advice of someone we asked and catch a number 64 bus.  The first two were incredibly full and there was no way in, though Alison managed to get on one, no room for me.  The third one was also similarly full and made even more full by a woman loading a pushchair in.  It was extraordinary to watch her being swallowed by the crowd.  We were lucky with the fourth bus as there was enough room.  It then proceeded to pretty much empty out at the next stop.

Once we arrived at St Paul's we got out and went into a queue that we thought was in to the Vatican.  We were security checked and in we went.  We then followed some people into this room full of even more people.  Not sure what we were walking in to, in we went.  Turns out is was an audience with the Pope.  After watching him for about five minutes we left bore the huge crowd did and asked one of the many, many soldiers which way to go.  It seems we had another ten minute walk around the corner.  We walked around the corner and up the hill and collected our tickets with no queueing whatsoever.  We were led to believe there would be long queues, but there weren't.  So it was off to the Sistine Chapel.

An audience with the Pope

The Vatican Museum is a veritable rabbit warren of stairs and corridors and nooks and crannies.  Luckily it is well signposted.  It was great going through the Borgia apartments on the way to the Chapel.  Once in the Chapel there was a huge crowd of people.  You are asked to be silent in respect of it being a sacred space and also to not take pictures.  There were guards there who were shushing people and growling at them for taking photos.  It is a pretty magnificent space and the paintings are awesome.

Once we had finished there, we were going to meet The Right Reverend Sir David Moxon who is a friend of Alison's and also the Anglican ambassador to Rome.  We had coffee with him and then he invited us back later for a look at an archeological site that they are pretty sure is where St Paul was interred for two years before Nero had his head cut off.  It was below ground and a pretty interesting apartment.  It wasn't below ground when it was built 2000 odd years ago but the ground level has risen as it filled up with dirt.  He also told us that where we are staying is where Pope Francis was staying the night before he was elected Pope.  It was here that he went back to pay his account before moving to his flat behind the Vatican.

In between seeing him we headed off to the Colosseum.  It was a gentle walk past ruins and statues of Caesars and then into the Colosseum itself.  Quite a few armed guards and two sets of searches to get in.  David had told us prior to going that ISIS have made a threat against it and also against the Pope, hence the heightened security.  I don't feel at all unsafe so that is good.  The Colosseum is a pretty impressive structure and I felt like I was at the stadium in Wellington.  I did think a couple of times that there was no way that in over 2000 years people would be visiting the stadium like we were in the Colosseum.

After a walk back to see the dig site we headed back to our room for a rest before we go out to dinner.  There seems to be some kind of gathering outside the window and someone speaking through a loud hailer.  There is also applause.  No idea what about though.

When in Rome

Today was our last train journey.  We were heading to Rome from Florence.  Before catching our train we had a quick trip to see Michelangelo's David.  And pretty impressive he is too.  Very tall and carved out of marble.  My favourite part was the bit around his ribs.  So well carved that you could almost see the movement of him breathing.  On the way in to the room where David resides there are some statues that were commissioned by the Pope at the time that Michelangelo started but never finished.  They are interesting in that you can see them emerging from the stone and the way he works.

Then it was a quick trip to the Ufizzi to check out Birth of Venus and The Annunciation, both amazing paintings.  Once we'd seen them, it was an even quicker run back to pick up our bags and grab a taxi to the station.  We had our second female taxi driver of Florence and she got us there in quick time and with some amazingly skillful driving through the tiniest of streets.  There seemed to be no regard for whether you were on foot, on a moped or in a car.  It seems you can just wander aimlessly anywhere!  Once we got to the train it was arriving 10 minutes late so we had a few extra minutes to catch our breath.  Once it arrived it was back into first class again and off to Rome.

Some of the countryside that whizzed by

Once we arrived in Rome we decided to catch another cab.  There had been instructions on how to catch a bus but Alison hadn't been able to download them.  We found a cab and told him where we were going, the Domus Internationale Paulus VI.  Unfortunately we had no street address and the cabbie's English wasn't the best.  We ended up on Via Paulus VI which is by the Vatican and also on the wrong side of the river from where we needed to be.  Alison and the cabbie got out to ask but where they went they couldn't pick up the internet.  The cabbie came back and contacted his base and eventually found out where we were meant to be.

We arrived safely and went out for our customary orientation walk.  We found he Piazza Navona easily enough and then headed off to the Pantheon (called the Parthenon by some Aussies we met in the car out to Auschwitz).  Another pretty impressive building that houses the grave of my favourite Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtle, Raphael.  Then off to the Trevi fountain.  Also pretty amazing.  Lots of tourists there though and lots of people trying to sell selfie sticks.  

We are on the 4th floor of the building and the view is pretty amazing.  I have just watched an amazing sunset.  I took a photo but it doesn't really show how amazing it is.  So that was today!

The view at dusk

Sunset over Rome

When the moon hits your eye like a big pizza pie,

Today we trained to Florence.  We left Biel on the 7.20 am and we had three changes on the way.  The first train left on time but arrived in Bern late.  We had a short turn around for that one so we were a bit worried about catching our connection to Brig as we had to go from platform 5 to platform 9.  Luckily the train coming into Brig was 10 minutes late so we managed to catch it.  We figured we had a 40 minute gap on our train change in Milan so we'd be fine.  No.  The 10 minute delay at Brig turned into a 40 minute one into Milan so we missed our connection to Florence.  We even did running from platform 6 to platform 16 but still too slow!  So we went and talked to the lady in the booking office and got on the next train which was an hour later.  Whew!  This was a rapid train.  I didn't realise how rapid until I looked up and saw this:

Sorry about the quality but when you're going 300k it's hard to take a good shot!

We also spent a lot of the last part of the trip in tunnels.  Italy is pretty with lots of old buildings, like a lot of the places we have seen.

Also there is no more snow.

We are staying in an apartmentwhich is handy to churches, restaurants, the river and the statue of David.  We are going to see him tomorrow before we head off to Rome.

After dropping our suitcases off we headed out for a walk.  Turns out we are quite close to the Duomo so we headed off there.  Wow!  What a building!  It takes up the whole block and is made with green and white stone.  It is almost better than York Cathedral!  After that we headed down to the river and then wandered back to our apartment.  Dinner tonight will be across the road, I think, at the restaurant owned by the people who own this apartment.  I'm looking forward to eating Italian food in Italy.  I love pasta!

On a side note, last night was so clear that we could actually see stars.  We could see Orion which was the other way around, of course.  It was great to finally be able to see stars up here.  Tonight it is also clear and we were able to see the moon when we were out earlier.  It also doesn't get dark as early here as it did in the UK.  But it does still get darker quicker than back home.  It was dark by 5.30 tonight.

Snow and sauerkraut

Today we drove to Luzern via Basle which is where this guy comes from.

And this is the street named after him in Biel where we are staying

Biel is also where this awesome athlete trains.  But she's in Auckland at the moment so we couldn't go visit her.

About halfway from Basle to Luzern, it started to snow.

It was snowing so badly we couldn't see very far in front of us and one guy even did a slow 180 as he wasn't driving to the conditions.  There were also some more tunnels.

This tunnel was before the snow.

Luzern is lovely.  It has a river running through it and old buildings on either side.  We went for a walk to see the big lion and also walked over the wooden bridge that crosses the river.  We did this after our late lunch.  I had sauerkraut for lunch which is what you need to do in this part of the world.

Last night for dinner we had fondue.  I successfully negotiated the first piece of bread however the second ended up in the cheese.  Luckily it wasn't a fondue of Asterix proportions and I was able to fish the bread out sucessfully.

We had a long day today in the car and we have an early start tomorrow as we are on the train to Florence.  I will add some pictures when I get them sent to me.

She blinded me with science

Today we popped over to Geneva to check out CERN and the Large Hadron Collider (LHC to the scientists). We could only get into the museum as they weren't doing any tours of the LHC, but that was OK.  We got to see what it does and how it works.  Basically you squirt Hydrogen into the machine, it swirls it about a bit to take away the electrons and then it spits the protons out and they whizz around the 27 km track at the speed of light, bang into each other and then you have a look at what comes out the end. Pretty mind blowing really.  I got a t shirt as a souvenir.  The 27 k is in a big circle underground.  It is 50-175 m down and the protons are propelled by magnets that are supercooled.  We were told that it is basically a giant freezer.

Ths shows the 27 km loop of the LHC as it goes under Switzerland and France

After that, we popped in to France for lunch.  As you do.  I had a Mac Papa as illustrated below.  It was nice.

And here is the border to France.

The drive to Geneva is about two hours along the motorway and our chauffeur was barrelling along at 130k.  Not sure what the speed limit actually is but we got there and back safely.  The first half of the journey is mainly tunnels which I found a bit strange but if there is a big mountain in your way I guess that is the only way through.  We had some snow this morning so there was a lot of snow about too.  It was very pretty hanging off the trees and on the pathways.

On the way back we drove around lake Geneva.  It is very pretty and some pretty nice real estate on the edge of the lake, not that we could see much of it through the high fences and hedges.

Tonight we are going to be treated to fondue and a traditional Swiss dessert.  Not sure what it is but I'm sure it will be lovely.

Let it snow, let it snow, let it snow...

This is what we woke up to this morning.

This was it last night.

Today has seen us on a train again heading out to Biel in Switzerland to stay with a friend of a friend of Alison's.  The scenery was just breathtaking and the photos don't do it any justice but I did take some.  We were in Zurich for a couple of hours and went for a walk for about half an hour, once we had sorted out where to stow our luggage and also the correct money to use, which are Swiss Francs.  Who knew?  The change machine ripped us off too.  We put in €5 and got back 4 francs. Thought nothing of it until the machine wouldn't take the next €5 we tried to put in because it was too crinkled. I went off to the bank to change the euros to francs and this time got 5.20!  Stupid machine. While we were walking around it began to snow lightly.  Continuing in the vein of eating the local food, I bought some chocolate, as you do.  There might not be any left when I get home.

After that it was back on the train and through some beautiful scenery and some more snow.  Two stops before Biel the snow was going sideways.  It was almost like being back at home!  Now we are relaxing at Claudia's while she prepares a home cooked meal. It is nice being in a house rather than a hotel. Tomorrow it is off to Geneva for the day to CERN so I can get my science geek on.  Unfortunately we can't do any tours of the large hadron collider but there are museums that we can go to so that should be good.

Autobahn perched on the edge of the cliff in Zurich

More Autobahn perched on the edge of the cliff on the way to Zurich

Roundng the lake into Zurich, just before the tunnel

Snow

More snow

No anti nuclear policy here!

Tryng the local brew.  Don't look at how I poured it, I'm out of practice!

Innsbruck...sorry about the boring title

Today saw us on a train again heading to Innsbruck, a small place by the mountains.  We are staying in a Youth Hostel and the internet is located in the communal room next to the kitchen.  There are a few people here but mainly keeping to themselves as they are hooked up to devices.  The view out of the window of the Alps is stunning and, behind us, there is the wonderful white noise of the autobahn.

We started the morning looking through Mozart's house.  There were lots of his original instruments and music on display.  We have come to the conclusion that he was probably a little brat who was spoiled all the time.  Everything in Salzburg seems to be about Mozart and a lot of the souvenirs are branded with his image.  I bought some Mozart chocolates because they are quite nice. I might even have some left when I get back (yeah right!).

Train travel is awesome.  One minute I was taking a photo of the speed and it was this...

...nek minnit!

Sorry about it being blurry!

We went for a walk after we arrived to make the most of the last of the daylight.  The alps are very pretty but there isn't much snow.  There is a little war cemetary that we can see from the window and we went and had a look at it.  It was strange seeing the graves of Turkish soldiers there.  The Turkish memorials had little Turkish hats on them.  We went around the block and on the way back grabbed some dinner from a Pizza place up the road.  Have plenty left over for breakfast and possibly even lunch tomorrow.  Someone was smoking in the little place we bought dinner from amd the last two nights we have been asked if we want the smoking or non smoking section of the restaurant.  It's bizarre that people can still smoke inside restaurants here.  But a quick google of the smoking laws reveals it isn't for that much longer.

Tomorrow it is off to Switzerland for a few days.  Again, by train.  First class all the way!  Such a great way to travel.

The hills are alive...

Today was the Sound of Music tour.  We were driven around some of the locations where the film was shot while the soundtrack was being played.  As an added bonus, our tour guide pointed out all sorts of interesting things such as the houses he found unusual and some of the sights of Salzburg.  He urged the men to make sure they asked for a particular type of hairstyle that was being advertised, in fact, it wouldn't have looked amiss on our conductor yesterday!  It was quite bouffant in the front.  He also told dad jokes.  Here is my favourite: This guy went to a zoo.  It was a big place and in the corner was just one little dog.  It was a Schitzu.

So we got to see where they fell out of the boat, where they danced on the balcony, where Maria and the children ran through trees, where Liesl and Rolf shared their first kiss and inside the church where  Maria got married.  We were recommended the Apple Strudel there so we had some.  It was pretty good.

The nativity scene in the church that Maria was married in (nothing to do with the movie but my ipad won't let me put it where I want to)

Maria's actual convent (plus camera fluff)

The church they were married in

Boating on the lake with the house where the ball was in the background

The children ran down here and swung from the trees in their 'curtain' outfits

Apple strudel

After that we went up to the fortress.  We went up in the funicular as it is on top of the hill.  When we got up there, the views were amazing, as was the wind when we went up to the top of one of the towers.  We decided to walk down and it was a nice walk.  By the end of that excitement we were both shattered and my feet were hurting so it was back to the hotel for a lie down.  We are both getting hungry now so we should go get some food.

The fortress (plus camera fluff)

View of part of Salzburg from the top of the fortress

Funicular track

Walking down from the fortress

Doh a dear...

This morning saw us on a Hop On Hop Off bus around Vienna.  We had to run for the bus as we had stopped at a regular bus stop rather than the HOHO one.  Once on the bus, we decided to get off at the Opera House and have a look around there.  What we didn't know was that it was closed today.  We ended up going for a walk around the place and saw a couple of churches, St Stephens and St Michaels and also the Spanish Riding School which Alison really enjoyed.  We approached St Stephen's from around the corner so the first sight of it was stunning.  It just took my breath away.  Vienna is the city of statues.  They are everywhere and are very ornate and large.  As were the buildings.  Enormous and gilt with gold.  We saw statues for Goethe and Franz Josef amongst others.  We also saw a whole pile of flash cars with flags on them behind St Michael Platz in at the Government buildings.  Not sure why they were there but couldn't see our flag so apparently we weren't invited!

Sorry NZ, you can't come play with us!

A horse

St Stephen's

Then it was into a cab for the trip back to the railway station.  It seems that we were ripped off when we went to the hotel the other night as that taxi ride cost us 3x what today's did.  It seems we were taken around all the back streets.  Oh well, that seems to happen when you're a tourist!

Then it was back on the train to Salzburg.  Our conductor had hair like a lion's mane and Alison nicknamed him Barry Gibb.  We travelled alongside the alps but it was too dark to get any decent photos.  Maybe Thursday when we leave.  Tomorrow is the Sound of Music tour and something else in the afternoon.  I've been told but I can't remember.  The hotel we are staying in is just around the corner from a big Porsche salesroom full of VWs and Audis.  Not a Porsche to be seen!

The alps speeding by at 150ish k

The weather has been a bit warmer today.  It even got up to 6 in Vienna.  It is about 2 in Salzburg so not too bad.

Oh, and one last thing, Happy Birthday dad!